The Cross Timbers (17 page)

For eight years after her marriage she had no children, and with her husband at work in the fields all day she would have been very lonely had she not always had some girl or woman in her home most of the time. They were not hired girls, but guests, although they always helped with the dishes and other housework. There was little to do, for Lucy was a notoriously sloppy housekeeper, but she was an excellent cook, and she could always find some girl or woman glad to come and stay for several weeks in return for good meals and lodging.

Because Lucy dearly loved young people and was a born matchmaker there were few Sunday afternoons that two or three young couples did not drop in, sure of a cordial welcome and refreshments of lemonade and cookies, cake, or gingerbread. She was always willing to give a party, at which the young people played such “parlor” games as “pussy wants a corner,” “blind man's buff,” “fruit basket,” or some of the play-party games.

Dancing was regarded as sinful in our part of the Cross Timbers, where most of the older people were members of either the Methodist or Baptist Church. There was apparently no objection, however, to the play-party games, in which singing took the place of music. The term “music” is used with reservations, for by no stretch of the imagination could the singing of most of the players be called “vocal music.”

The origin of some of these games is obscure, but no doubt
most of them had been brought to the Texas Cross Timbers as part of the cultural baggage of immigrants from Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas, and other Southern states.

Among these many games were “Skip to My Lou,” previously mentioned as a game that Uncle Jack Clark had played in Tennessee, and “Little Brass Wagon,” closely resembling the Virginia Reel. Still others were “Old Dan Tucker,” “The Miller Boy,” “Hog Drovers,” “Coffee Grows on White Oak Trees,” “Mr. Buster,” “We're Marching Down to New Orleans,” “Buffalo Girls,” and many more.

The tunes were often quite catchy, but the words meant very little and were sometimes sheer drivel, as may be seen by the first stanza of some that were most popular in our community:

We're marching down to New Orleans

With our drums and fifes a-beating

The Americans are gaining of the day

And the British are retreating.

Mr. Buster, do you love sugar in tea

Mr. Buster, do you love candy

Mr. Buster, he can reel and turn

And swing those girls so handy.

Happy is the miller boy that lives by the mill

The mill turns around with a free good will.

One hand on the hopper and the other in the sack

The ladies step forward and the gents step back.

There were variations in the words of “The Miller Boy,” but in both it and “Old Dan Tucker,” there was an extra man, who tried to steal a partner when the ladies stepped forward and the gents stepped back.

In “Old Dan Tucker” the words were as follows:

Old Dan Tucker's down in town

A-swinging the ladies all around

First to the right and then to the left

Then the one he loves the best.

Get out of the way for Old Dan Tucker

Came too late to get his supper.

Supper is over and nothin a-cookin,

And Old Dan Tucker stands there lookin'

Dance Tucker, dance Tucker.

The game was played by the couples standing in a circle, while the extra boy, who represented Old Dan Tucker, stood in the middle. After each boy had swung the girl to his right and the one to his left and the “one he loved the best,” with the words, “Get out of the way for Old Dan Tucker,” the boy and girl of each couple faced each other, joined hands, and danced with short sideways steps completely around the circle in what was called “promenading.”

The objective of Old Dan Tucker was to steal the partner of some boy who had left her side for a moment to “swing the one he loved the best.” If he succeeded the man left without a partner became the next Dan Tucker. In any case, however, the lone man was expected to dance a brief jig as the couples chanted “Dance Tucker” while they rested a moment from their promenade.

While this was one of the simplest of the play-party games, none of them were as complex as are some of the square-dance figures of today. I never attended any of the play parties, but when Lucy had a group of young people in for an evening I often joined in in such simple games as “blindfold,” “pinning the tail
on the donkey,” and in summer such outdoor games as “drop the handkerchief,” in which both boys and girls took part. George did not go to as many such parties as some boys of the community but went at times and knew all the songs. George's romance with this first girl was also brief, but there were others later.

The school at Keller was never a social center except that older people sometimes visited it on Friday afternoons when we had “speaking pieces” or spelling or arithmetic matches. In contrast, the one-room rural school called Mount Gilead, only two or three miles east of our home, had a flourishing literary society every year, which met twice a month on Friday evenings. Not only most of the pupils took part but also many young people of the community who were not in school.

George and I attended its meetings a few times but never appeared on the programs, which consisted of recitations and declamations, drills, and similar activities by the small fry, and one-act plays by the older persons. The recitations and declamations included such old favorites as “Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight,” “How We Tried to Lick the Teacher,” “The Widder Spriggins' Daughter,” “Spartacus to the Gladiators,” and “The Face on the Bar Room Floor.”

The younger children, of course, gave short and simple poems and sometimes put on a stunt, in which several small youngsters took part. One, for example, was called “Choice of Trades.” In this, a half dozen small boys, each dressed in suitable garb for his future vocation and carrying the appropriate tools, appeared one by one and recited a short stanza of verse. The lad hoping to study medicine came out with a doctor's bag and gave a brief speech:

When I am a man, a man as you see

I'll be a doctor if I can, and I can.

My pills and powders will be nice and sweet

And you may have just what you want to eat

When I am a man.

He might be followed by a would-be farmer wearing a blue shirt and overalls with a hoe or rake over his shoulder. He gave his little speech and retired to be followed by a future cowboy, carpenter, painter, teacher, lawyer. Then they all appeared and marched across the stage, each reciting his own verse.

The young men and women who were not in school usually gave one-act plays called dialogues. These included such favorites as
The Train to Mauro, Arabella's Poor Relations,
and
Marrying a Poetess.
Others might be blackface comedies, in which some of the characters blacked their faces with burnt cork for their roles as Negroes. The meetings of the Mount Gilead Literary Society were interesting, and the schoolhouse was always filled to overflowing.

The summer months were usually marked by a huge Fourth of July picnic, and often two or three smaller picnics were held by some Sunday School. Fireworks did not seem to have as much prominence on the Fourth of July as they had at Christmas. Thanksgiving was seldom celebrated at all, at least in our community, and comparatively little attention was given to Easter except by a few families that colored eggs for the children.

A Fourth of July picnic, however, brought out almost everyone in our neighborhood, for there was always at least one lemonade stand, from which the proprietor loudly proclaimed, “Ice-cold lemonade, made in the shade and stirred with a spade, milk shake
and sody-pop!” The youngsters patronized it freely if they had any money. The lemonade was usually in a large barrel which, like the legendary miraculous pitcher, never became dry, for the proprietor added water and ice from time to time. As a result, by the late afternoon the lemon rinds floating on top and a strong imagination were required to assure the patron that he was actually drinking lemonade.

In addition to the cold-drinks stand there was always a merry-go-round. The power for running this was furnished by a dejected-looking mule, whose appearance indicated that he could see little point in walking slowly around and around the central post all day with only slight pauses when the merry-go-round stopped to let some of its passengers off and to take on others. Often the owner and operator would give a seat to a couple of musicians, who played a violin and an accordion and sometimes sang as they whirled about. Sometimes there were other so-called “attractions” as a doll rack or shooting gallery, but the cold-drinks stand and merry-go-round were always present at large picnics.

It is difficult to say whether the social behavior of the people of the Texas Cross Timbers, between 1882 and 1892, differed much from that of the rural inhabitants of other states in the same period of time. Certainly great changes in our social customs as a whole have occurred in the past three-quarters of a century. It seems to me, however, that probably the Texas Cross Timbers dwellers were at least slightly more Victorian in social behavior than were those of the northern prairie states and possibly even of some of the southern states.

Children were taught to say “yes sir” and “no sir” and “yes ma'am” and “no ma'am” to older persons. At the table children said “thank you for the bread” and “no thank you, I wouldn't choose [or wish] any” when refusing a dish of food passed to them. Napkins were almost unknown, and all members of a family used a common towel, comb, and brush, but a clean towel was given to guests.

No one except her husband, close relatives, and friends who had known her since girlhood ever called a married woman by her given name. Moreover, when a young man was introduced to Miss Mary Brown, for example, he called her “Miss Brown” for a long time before venturing to say “Miss Mary,” and only after she had become a close friend did he call her “Mary.”

Perhaps it was in their ideas concerning dress and speech that the Cross Timbers people of three-quarters of a century ago differed most from people of today. A calico dress and sunbonnet were worn by most women for everyday, while men wore a hickory shirt and either jeans pants or overalls. For Sunday the women wore hats to church, and men favored a blue serge suit and white shirt. Women's dresses, in any case, reached within an inch or two of the floor.

Little girls wore short skirts, and boys sometimes wore dresses until they were two or three years old. They were then given short pants or knickers and often did not put on long pants until they were eight or nine years old. Boys and girls went barefoot from about May until October, and they usually drove their parents nearly frantic by urging to be allowed to start going barefoot earlier than their elders thought was wise.

Young women wore hoops and bustles at one period, although the fashion did not last in our community, at least, longer than two or three years. Any woman who rode horseback used a sidesaddle and wore a long black riding skirt. All men and boys wore a hat or cap when outside, and to remind a small boy to take off his hat when he came into the house was one of the minor crosses which most mothers had to bear.

A majority of the men of the Cross Timbers chewed tobacco, as did a considerable number of teen-age boys and some who had not reached their “teens.” A few men smoked a pipe, but cigarette smoking was confined largely to older boys or young men, who usually rolled their own.

A great many women dipped snuff, but the only woman that I ever saw smoke was Grandma Gray, a very old lady who was blind. She lived with her son for many years, but after his death her more distant relatives decided to send her to the county poorhouse. Because she quite naturally did not want to go there the members of my father's church agreed to keep her in their homes as long as she lived.

She came to us first for about two months. She smoked a clay pipe and among my duties were lighting her pipe with a sulphur match or a coal from the fireplace and leading her when she wanted to take a walk. She lived for only a few months after leaving us for the home of another member of the Old School Baptist Church.

Father never used tobacco in any form, nor did George or I; yet, we were sometimes offered a chew by boys about our own age. When drying peaches we would often peel very soft freestones, take out the seeds, crush the pulp, and spread it out on a clean board to dry. Once it was dry we would press eight or ten
sheets of this together and cut it into plugs and offer to each other a chew of “tobe.”

Probably the speech of the Cross Timbers people did not differ much from that of most other Southern uplanders. Fire was called “fahr,” James was usually pronounced “Jeems,” help in some instances became “holp,” and “et” replaced eat, ate, and have eaten. A young man often “carried” his horse to water, a cow to the pasture, and his girl to church. A woman did not break her leg but a “lower limb.” In fact, with floor-length skirts and the use of the term “limb,” it almost seemed that it was a social error for a woman to admit that she had legs!

Many words or expressions freely used today were considered highly improper in Cross Timbers Society during my boyhood days. To refer to an unmarried woman's future children was a grave social error.

Upon one occasion I was at Tom and Lucy's home when the sewing circle was meeting there. The seven or eight women, including Betty Vick, an eighteen-year-old daughter of one of them, were talking about how badly spoiled some children of the neighborhood were. In a moment's lull of the conversation Betty said earnestly, “I'll tell you right now if I ever have any . . .” she stopped suddenly, blushed, and continued, “nieces or nephews, they are not going to be spoiled!”

Such words as “belly,” “bull,” “boar,” and “pregnant” were never used in mixed company. One day six-year-old Ted Hurst, who was standing before a window, called excitedly, “Oh mommie! Mr. Preston's old bull is comin' down the road!”